Wednesday, January 23, 2008

unexpected wonderful day today. weather was gray and rainy in contrast to dry and blue skies yesterday when we were at the hospital.

the disappointment about the weather was made good by two delightful visits by two dear friends.

toos came round at noon for tea and brought me a present of a small red lcd light in the shape of a red rose.

then aletta came round for coffee and biscuits at 3pm and after 4pm we also had a nice glass of wine and ate wasabi crackers.

and when our lovely doctor came at 5 pm to check that the skin on my heels had healed she found us in fine spirits and they got even better when she confirmed that indeed they was 100% ok again. what a relief for us.

and then even better news martin will visit next week which is brilliant news i am so very happy and so is richie. met martin here in 1986, he is a lovely man.

and to make my joy complete ute is going to visit for two weeks at the beginning of march, we met in 1985.

going to bed well happy tonight and feeling well loved and totally loving my/our beautiful friends.

Horrible day at the V.U hospital yesterday. Unpleasant and incompetent, we were given two sets of papers. One for another woman so there we were waiting for the blood samoles to be taken and next thing get the third degree about where I had got the extra forms from.

When we suggested at reception M we were ordered to take them back right away.Had to see the horrible sour faced receptionist again.Felt sorry for her nearest and dearest.

We keep asking ourselves why they have to be so unfriendly?Quite the opposite from the OLVG hospital where they are friendly and more human.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Have to go to the hospital tomorrow for blood samples.I hate needles! After the blood samples I have to have a heart scan so will be at the hospital from 12 noon until 14.30!!

Then next week on 4 feb. I see the specialist who will explain all about the vasculair problems the neurologist saw on the mri's. He already saw this on the first set of mri's in December 2006 but til now there was no action taken?

Not my idea of top days, guess I have to be brave....... bloody hell!!

Lots of people have asked me where the name Herrad comes from and when I got a mail from a good friend last night, who knows me as Patricia. I wrote her a long email and told her the story.After the email was sent I decided to post it too.

I got the name Herrad because my dad promised my mum's sister Herrad that if their baby was a girl they would name it after her.I hated it as a kid especially as I was teased all the time and called King Herod and told that I was the one that had all the male babies killed.

This really upset me, more so because three of my good friends were jewish, one was my best friend whom I loved very much. As it upset me and I had cried the kids who teased me never stopped. So when we moved from Trinidad in 1962 I started using my second name Patricia and was relieved to have a neutral name.

So you can imagine my shock and horror when I visited Trinidad again for the first and sadly only time in 1997 and my extended family out there called me Herrad-Patricia I was horrified.

After three weeks I kind of liked it too also because it felt right. My visit took me back to my roots and finally everything fell into place and made sense to me. I finally I knew where I was from and it was brilliant seeing my favourite auntie Jo and my cousins and their kids this was a very special and important visit.

When I got back to Amsterdam I decided to find out where the name was from. My auntie Herrad told me the story behind the name which was that her granddad was doing some research and came across an abbess called Herrad of Landsberg. He was so impressed he decided Herrad was a great name and got his son to call his first daughter Herrad.

Richie looked it up for me on the internet and I decided that I rather liked the name in fact I liked it better than Patricia and changed back to my original first name. This was not easy for everyone including myself as it was often quite complicated explaining this to old friends and for them and me to get used to the "new" name.

It felt right, it felt like all the pieces of a puzzle had fallen into place. Here's the story about Herrad of Landsberg, thought she sounded like quite a girl.Hope you enjoy reading it too. I am not religious by the way but was very impressed with what Herrad had done.

Herrad of Landsberg (d. aft.1196)

In 1147 Frederick Barbarossa appointed a relative, Relinda, to be abbess and to institute needed reforms at the women's monastery of St. Odile at Hohenbourg, near Strausbourg in Alsace, a monastery that had been founded perhaps as early as the 600s. After he became emperor in 1155, Barbarossa continued to support Relinda and her canonesses. Adopting the Augustinian Rule, St. Odile became a rich and powerful monastery, a center of learning, and a school for the daughters of the area nobility.

At Relinda's death in the mid-1170s, another abbess was named, Herrad. At one time historians believed her to be from a powerful family of Landsberg, but that is now questioned, so we are sure of nothing about her background or education. We do know that her education was broad, because she was able to produce an encyclopedic compilation of sources concerning all of salvation history, from the creation to the end of the world and beyond.

Herrad's canonesses already had access to Scripture; what she did was present them with the latest interpretations on the meaning of that Scripture. Therefore, she used not only the older theological authorities but also the work of scholars of the 1100s, such as Anselm and Bernard of Clairvaux, as well as her own contemporaries, Peter Lombard and Peter Comestor, whose works now formed part of the core curriculum of the new all-male schools. She emphasized those texts that reflected the newest thought on theology, biblical history and canon law.

Herrad's goal seems to have been to bring together the best of the old and the new theology in a teaching manual --- of both words and pictures --- that would provide an advanced theological education to her learned canonesses, and that would also be an aid to meditation for the less learned, especially the novices, and perhaps also the lay students. Besides the theological texts, the book also contained poetry and hymns (some accompanied by musical notation).

The result of all this was the Hortus deliciarum (Garden of delight). It consisted of over 300 parchment leaves of folio size. In addition to the Latin texts, over 344 illustrations were used: at least 130 of these were brightly colored full-page illuminations, while smaller ones were put on the same pages as text; there were also drawings and tables. Many of the illustrations were given explanatory rubrics and in some cases detailed captions placed around the figures. In case the Latin terms weren't clear to the younger readers, German was frequently added. The effect was to allow text and image to gloss each other.

Work on the Hortus had begun before 1175; the major part of the work may have been completed by 1185, although additions appear to have been made until Herrad's death. The manuscript (and one complete copy) survived fires and suppression of monasteries, only to be destroyed in an 1870 bombardment during a siege of the city of Strausbourg. All that exists now are copies of part of the text and some tracings and engravings that were made before 1870.

According to scholars who studied the manuscript before its destruction, both the the text and the illustrations were the work of several different hands. The drawings and the copying of the text (at least three copyists were involved) were almost surely done in the scriptorium at Hohenbourg; the coloring of the drawings may have been done there or elsewhere, but apparently under the supervision of a single artist.

What is clear is that text and illustration were conceived together; in some cases it appears that a text was chosen to fit a specific drawing.

Herrad was without question the editor of Hortus deliciarum, so the work reflects her organization and her integration of text and illustration. Until the 1900s all of the 67 poems contained in the work were also attributed to her (or to Relinda). Research has now reduced that number to a probable seven, but in those we can hear the same voice that put together the whole.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Ages ago someone left a comment about wheelchair cushions. I looked at the site but sadly this is not something I can afford and its not something I can get from the Amsterdam city council as they do not care about your health and welfare not anymore just the cost, everything has to be cheap and adequate. Cheap being more important than adequate!!

Rmachuta said...As you spend more and more time in your wheelchair you are starting to notice the effects of reduced circulation such as swelling legs. You are right to realize that lack of movement reduces circulation. EASE Seating in California makes a cushion that moves for you. They have hundreds of customers with M/S who can sit up all day without pain or pressure sores. A pressure sore killed Christopher Reeve in 5 days, despite spending $400,000 a year on care! Call USA 530 877-8705 of www.EASEcushion.com.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

I am in alot of pain and discomfort these days and the only let up is sleeping tablets which help me sleep for about 7 hours if I am lucky.

Really try to keep optimistic and my darling keeps me smiling . It's not easy blogging as I have to hold on to the w/chair for balance while trying to type with my fingernail of my right index finger.

It's a huge struggle.

Tomorrow my casemanager and the ergotherapist will be round to discuss my situation and see what sort of chair I need for sitting in all day and hopefully also organising a better cushion for me to sit on.

I have a roho cushion that you have to adjust manually and need a cushion that adjust the pressure automatically, even better if it were to vibrate as this apparently cuts the real dangers of pressure sores on my legs and bottom.

Even now still hopeful that any solutions can happen quickly instead of the usual three months that requests take.

Will try and stay calm, difficult as this wedsnesday I see the neurologist who recently told me that his second opinion was I had abit of M.S. Had been waiting for his second opinion since December 2006.

What a story, December 2006 he said he would look at the MRI's and in January 2007 he said he needed to make his own MRI's and finally June/July 2007 they were made. Had to happen at the OLVG hospital as the MRI machines at the VU are too small and despite valium I had a panic attack which was not helped by the most unhelpful and surly male nurse ever!

In August, he phoned and did not know why he was phoning, had no results promised to get them. I then made a new appointment for August, again he had nothing to tell me. The same in September and October and finally November he had the MRI's. This was because he asked me to phone the other hospital and get them to send the photos.

Took til 7 november 2007 to hear his second opinion!! So wonder if he will be more informative this wednesday.